Hey all, it's been a while since I had any projects going on, what with a new job, moving a few states over, and having a baby. This has been something I've wanted to tackle for some time, and only recently I've had the free time to get around to it.

A few months back I found out a college friend of mine is working for a 3D printing company and has basically unlimited print material as a job perk. He's kept track of my Facebook posts on my previous projects and has graciously offered me spare machine time at a very friendly rate.

As I originally intended to do with my proton pack's thrower assembly, I'm modeling the Giga Meter in SolidWorks for export and printing. I've used every bit of reference material available, from screen grabs to others' estimated measurements of the Redman polisher's parts, and gotten some rough blueprints made up which I've since modeled in SW. There's still much to do, but I figured I'm far enough along to post my progress.

This is what I've got done for the main body thus far. I'm doing my best to design it for only 3D printing and making it as difficult as I can for people to recast it (because, let's face it, when stuff like this is made, certain asshats like to get their grubby mits on it and make cheap knockoffs while claiming all the work as their own; screw those guys). Rather than having two halves that pop or screw together, the main body will be one unit that other parts will attach to through threaded inserts and captive screws, if I can find them in the right size (if I can't, well, normal screws will work, too).

This would be the "battery box" for the underside of the main body. I'm having the fins attach directly to it so the main body can stay relatively low-profile for ease of printing.

This is what I've got done for half of the handle so far. This is only the basic profile so far and still needs mating surfaces and insert holes aligned with the main body model.

I've also been learning as much as I can on Arduino and other hobby-type circuits. I've got code written up and the entire circuit designed for 3x 7-segment displays, the spinning dome, and a scanning sound. All of this will be linked to a wheel potentiometer in the handle's forward rounded edge and coded such that turning up the potentiometer will increase the separation angle of the microphone ears (via servos), pitch and frequency of the scan beeping sound, and 000-999 number on the 7-segment display. GB2 doesn't really show all that much of the giga's functionality beyond Egon scanning that concentrated slime in the street and a few passing scans of other things, so these features aren't all that beyond the scope of what's seen on screen.

I'll be sure to post updates as often as I can manage them. I'm going back on a rotating 12-hour shift at work so I'll have blocks of days off, most of which will be spent with my son, but I will definitely try to have this finished within a few months and maybe, just maybe, a chance at a run of these and the electronics kit by Halloween 2014. No promises, though.

Got a little more done on the handle. It's still a work in progress, of course, in that I still need to make mating surfaces between it and the main body, as well as mirror it for the left half.

I also couldn't resist in seeing the progress so far...

I realize the main body is missing the detail boxes on the sides. Turns out that trying to draw to curved surfaces in SolidWorks 2001 is very difficult to do. *grumble grumble* I've got a few ideas on how to approach it but, worse comes to worse, I can cut out pieces of styrene and use a heat gun over a buck to form them to spec and just glue the damn things on. At the very least, they'll be a lot easier to model on the handle.

Oh, and after seeing pOOpTarT's thread covering his Slimer and Ecto-1 plate pins he made in his 3D printer (http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... 31&t=35563), I'm seriously tempted to get myself a MakerBot 2X (I'm designing the Giga to be printed within the limits of another machine, but it would fit in the 2X's profile, as well). If anyone has one or knows a lot about various affordable printers, please send me a PM!

EDIT: I just realized that reorganizing my Photobucket account caused the links in the first post to break, and I can't edit the body of the text, so here they are:

So I updated to SolidWorks 2013 this week and I've had a bit of time to work on updating the models. I've finally fleshed out the mating surfaces between the handle and the main body, as well as modifying it for the potentiometer and pushbutton for the electronics kit.
I've also got parts coming in so I can prototype said kit some point in the near future. Definitely looking forward to tackling that, but in the meantime, I've got this made up for the time being...

The battery box is the longest part and that should size in at under 150mm long; the widest part would be the forward assembly that the top display and the bottom domes attach to, which is about 95mm wide. I made sure to split the whole thing up to be printable in most home-use 3D printers. I'd love to get my hands on a MakerBot Replicator 2X but, alas, have no money for such extravagance.

That could work! Send me a PM with the details on pricing, file formats, and such and we'll hash out a plan.
This would be the same printer used for the proton gun kits, correct? Those things looked smooth.

Just out of curiosity, are you using the original Scrubthingy as a base for the rough measurements or going all from scratch? There was a run of raw casts of the original base part a few years ago. I don't have one or I would crawl over it with a pair of calipers for you.

Mostly I've been using my engineering know-how and pictures of the thing with known reference measurements to estimate things as best as I can. If I'd been able to get my hands on an original buffer shell, I'd have just converted that instead of going the 3D printing avenue.

I have had an offer or two to borrow an original scrubber for measurements. I'm going to get this model finished using my own estimates first, then if there's interest I'll see what I can do to make it as perfectly-accurate as I can make it.

Wow, this thread's seen a lot of hits since I started! Here's a little something to tide you over until I finish this part. I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on much of anything lately, so this will have to do for now.

This last week I was able to work on the model in more of a "cleanup" fashion; mostly addressing the various places I over-engineered the design and finishing up the mating so the parts assemble more smoothly. I have Wednesday and Thursday off work and hope to finish the front piece in that time and hopefully start on the main display.

If anyone sees this and has purchased a MakerBot, please send me a PM ASAP. I need to pick a brain or two!

Donatello: Sorry man, I got caught up in my update post and didn't see yours!
Unfortunately, I've already got my own electronics package sorted and most of the parts ordered and on-hand already, as well as teaching myself Arduino and I'll be starting on learning EAGLE as soon as the Giga model is finished. I'm still plugging away at the model, of course, so that may be a while. If you've got EAGLE experience, I could use some help in designing the boards for the electronics I've built this model around.
If you've got a set of digital calipers or something like that, I could use a few basic measurements (overall length/width/height, handle width/length/height, forward cylinder measurements and diameter, etc) on the scrubber to make sure that I've got this thing scaled right.

Unfortunately I had to remove the link to the auction. We're happy to make exceptions if it's a screen-used item from one of the two movies, or other items that would be of high interest to the community... but a listing for the realistic mike isn't significant enough to be allowed, I'm afraid.

I will also be working on models of the Realistic Microphone ears, if only to fit them to the servos I have for the electronics kit. Since those will be far less complicated than the body of the Giga to model, I'm saving them for last.

@abaka: As soon as I have a working prototype done, I'll be happy to discuss the various features I've thrown in. I'm using Arduino for the whole shebang.

Pretty slick work.
The most valuable advice I can give you is to be mindful of how you plan to divide up the object for printing on a MakerBot style printer. I've never really liked or trusted how well support media works on it, and I prefer to print sections of assemblies "pyramid style", so they start printing with the fat area on the bottom and build upwards areas of equal or smaller cross section (negating the need for support media).

I see how you can divide this build very easily for optimal printing (limiting headaches, but increasing components to print.
If you're printing a master for casting, this might be the way to go, anyway, as you can focus on really cleaning up each component before and during assembly of the master.